This question has been keeping me up all night. What is the difference between jam, jelly, marmalade, preserves, and butter as in apple and peanut? Why don’t we see any peanut jam or orange jelly? –Claudia Cipriani, Hackensack, New Jersey
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Jelly is made from fruit juice and so has no fruit bits. Jam is made by boiling fruit and does have fruit bits. Preserves are basically the same as jam unless you buy them from Smucker’s, in which case if it’s got seeds in it it’s preserves and if it doesn’t it’s jam. Marmalade typically is a citrus-based preserve, sometimes containing the rind, but other fruits can be used. Apple and peanut butter are called that because they bear a resemblance to dairy butter. But if you want to call it apple jam (as opposed to apple jelly, which is made from juice), fine by me.
I’m a 9-to-5 fixed-income kinda guy who cares about his family, nation, and world. I overheard some of my millionaire bosses talking about how the Federal Reserve is a private institution owned by individual banks. Isn’t our bank our bank? Please tell me this is not happening to my country. –Rob Khan, Chicago
In short, you should be grateful. But you’re not, because the whole thing reeks of elitism. All I can tell you if you don’t like it is to visit Russia or Argentina or some other Fed-less countries whose money was rendered worthless by hyperinflation. There’s a lot about independent central banks, just like there’s a lot about capitalism, that is offensive to the sensitive soul. But they do have a compensating advantage, namely that they work.